NBC ANNOUNCES AGGRESSIVE NEW STRUCTURE FOR SERIES DEVELOPMENT TEAMS

NBC ANNOUNCES AGGRESSIVE NEW STRUCTURE FOR SERIES DEVELOPMENT TEAMS

Changes Greater Flow of Creative Content in NBC's Quest for Year-Round Programming and Adds New Executives

BURBANK - March 14, 2005 - In the most aggressive organizational move since he took the reins nearly two years ago, Kevin Reilly, President, NBC Entertainment, announced a major re-structuring that will allow for creative talent more access points into the network and closer working relationships with the development teams.

Specifically, NBC has split each of the traditional comedy and drama departments into two separate teams - one team in each genre concentrating on ideas from NBC Universal Television Studio and a second unit dedicated to cultivating and accepting external projects, those from outside studios.

In addition, NBC will open a New York program development office that will develop all genres with New York-based talent.

All of the development executives will report to Ghen Maynard, Executive Vice President, Series Development.

"A challenge of the network television system is that its a high volume game, with too many executives each covering too many projects. With the West Coast realignment it will thin out the volume on any one executive's plate to let them be more pro-active and work more closely with creative talent. It also allows for more access points for freeball projects to get into the network system. Additionally this will enable us to get closer to our goal of maintaining original programming on the air year-round."

Veteran network executive Cheryl Dolins is expected to remain as Senior Vice President, Comedy Development, after shepherding the highly anticipated new spring comedy "The Office" and delivering a promising comedy development slate for 2005-06.

Dolins will oversee comedy projects from NBC Universal Television Studio. Gina Girolamo also continues as Vice President, Comedy Development, reporting to Dolins.

The second comedy unit for outside studios will be led by newly hired Jane Greenstein (most recently Director, Comedy Development, Fox Broadcasting Company), who now becomes Vice President, Comedy Development. Terence Carter (moving over from Tonic Films) also joins the network as Director, Comedy Development, and will report to Greenstein.

On the drama side, Michael Thorn will lead the drama development team overseeing projects from NBC Universal Television Studio that includes an executive to be named later.

The second drama unit for outside studios will be headed by Chris Castallo (coming from Tollin-Robbins Productions), newly hired to serve as Vice President, Drama Development. He will be joined by Justin Levy, who moves over from comedy development to become Manager, Drama Development.

A New York-based creative office will run under the guidance of a new executive in a position to be named later. In addition to cultivating new talent, this office will work with NBC's key active relationships with Lorne Michaels and "Saturday Night Live" and Conan O'Brien with "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" (Michaels and O'Brien have production companies and are developing series for primetime).

The New York department will also look after some of NBC's New York-based production, such as NBC's new drama series pilot, "NY-70," which would shoot locally if given the greenlight.

Greenstein arrives from Fox Broadcast Company, where she was Director, Comedy Development, since September 2002. Earlier, she served as Manager, Comedy Development, and Manager, Current Programs. She has played a key role in developing such programs as Arrested Development and The Simple Life. She will join the network in July.

A veteran of Tollin-Robbins Productions, Castallo most recently was the company's Senior Vice President of Development. Previously, he held positions there as Vice President of Development and as Director of Development. He was instrumental in the development of such WB hits as One Tree Hill and Smallville, as well as this spring's NBC pilot Inconceivable. Castallo began his career in development at Touchstone Television. He will join NBC in June.

Carter comes to NBC from Tonic Films, where he was a Development Executive. He also worked as a Producer at TruEntertainment and began his career at Artists Management Group.